


There's Something Tragic (About You)

by AnaliseGrey



Series: Along the Way [15]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Aftermath of Songbird, M/M, POV Yasha (Critical Role), Yasha misses a lot when she's gone, Yasha returns!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-25
Updated: 2019-11-25
Packaged: 2021-02-26 01:48:29
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,346
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21555757
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnaliseGrey/pseuds/AnaliseGrey
Summary: Yasha doesn’t believe in destiny.Free will is one of her greatest treasures and she guards it fiercely, enjoying the freedom it gives her to wander as she will, go where she wants, never tied down or held to any specific course of action.She doesn’t believe in destiny.That doesn’t mean that, on occasion, she isn’t susceptible tonudges.
Relationships: Mollymauk Tealeaf/Caleb Widogast
Series: Along the Way [15]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1139501
Comments: 16
Kudos: 113





	There's Something Tragic (About You)

**Author's Note:**

> For all those wondering about what would happen when Yasha found out about the events of Songbird...

Yasha doesn’t believe in destiny.

Free will is one of her greatest treasures and she guards it fiercely, enjoying the freedom it gives her to wander as she will, go where she wants, never tied down or held to any specific course of action.

She doesn’t believe in destiny.

That doesn’t mean that, on occasion, she isn’t susceptible to _nudges_.

It may not be destiny, but it’s certainly more than coincidence that has her finding the Mighty Nein over and over again, coming back together with her friends- with her Molly- when all logic would indicate such circumstances to be unlikely if not impossible.

So it’s not too much of a surprise to her to be heading along the Amber Road towards the Wuyun Gate late one evening and hear raised voices from the nearby treeline.

Familiar voices.

She veers off the road and into the tall grass that lines the roadway, making for the edge of the forest. She sees the cart, and as she gets closer she catches the light of their campfire casting warm shades of orange and yellow on the figures of her friends.

“Yasha!”

There’s a blur of blue, and before she knows it, Yasha has her arms full of blue tiefling. She smiles softly down at the girl in her arms.

“Hello, Jester.”

There’s a wave of hellos, introductions to the one figure Yasha doesn’t recognize, Caduceus Clay. He’s tall, actually taller than her, which she doesn’t experience often. He’s soft colors, with a gentle demeanor, but something about him irks her, and she can’t pinpoint what.

“Hello there, storm cloud.”

She’s smiling before she even sees him, opening her arms up to hug Molly even as he’s stepping forward into her personal space. She gets her arms around him and lifts, twirling him slowly in the air in the way she knows he likes, and as always it pulls a delighted laugh out of him. As she sets him down, he starts to falter, and when she sets a hand on him to steady him, she frowns at the feel of bone in his shoulder rather than the strong muscle she’s accustomed to. She squeezes slightly, and he smiles up at her, though the smile doesn’t seem as bright as she remembers.

“Something wrong, love?”

“You seem...different.”

“Well,” he says. “Everyone changes, don’t they? We can hardly be expected to stay the same all the time, now can we?”

Her eyes narrow at the evasion, but before she can say anything else, Jester is once again at her side, pulling her towards the fire circle to sit, and the group chatter resumes as if nothing’s changed, as if she hasn’t been gone for months.

Through the evening, even as she talks with Beau, with Jester and Nott and Fjord, she keeps an eye on Molly. Watches him sitting with Caleb, talking quietly, smiling as he works on his coat. It doesn’t take her long to realize it’s not the same coat she’s accustomed to; the designs stitched into it are different, and there are large swathes of empty space on it. While he works, eyes squinting down at the needle in his fingers, Caleb moves one of his globules of light to float in front of Molly, and for a second, Molly’s smile flickers brighter as he turns to murmur thanks before going back to work.

She notices other things.

He’s quieter, not as loud and obnoxious as he was the last time she saw him, as he has been almost as long as she’s known him. The more she looks, the more she can see a thinness to him- his cheekbones sharper, his body as a whole leaner than it was. She’d think they’d hit some hard times, but none of the others share the same diminishment as Molly. He doesn’t look starved, and when Caduceus serves dinner Molly eats along with everyone else, and she wonders if he was ill while she was gone.

Molly sits close to Caleb, leaning against his side, his tail curled carefully in Caleb’s lap, laying on top of Frumpkin where the cat’s napping; the spade end rests lightly on Frumpkin’s head like a little hat. Yasha keeps waiting for Molly to get up, to go sit with Jester, or to harass Fjord, or even to come sit with her, to drape himself across her shoulders or her lap, and generally make a pleasant nuisance of himself, but he doesn’t. He holds himself close, offering smiles to the others, answering questions when asked, more rarely offering input himself without being prompted.

He’s different, and it bothers her; bothers her that _something_ happened and she wasn’t there, doesn’t know what it is.

The last straw is when he turns his head to say something to Caleb, and a scar she knows should be there, should be catching the firelight _isn’t there_. There’s a bare patch of smooth skin where his neck meets his shoulder, and there should be scars there. She _knows_ there should be. She’s the one who patched so many of those initial wounds, and a seed of dread plants itself in her stomach.

She gets up and moves to sit on Molly’s other side, and when he turns toward her, a smile already on his face, she reaches for the edge of his shirt-

-and he flinches back.

The camp goes still, the moment holding crystalline in the air around them.

She pulls her hand back, hurt and dread and worry roiling in her gut, growing as his eyes widen, mouth forming a small ‘o’ of surprise. He hasn’t flinched from her in years, not since he was new, not since-

“Mollymauk, what happened to you?”

“Oh, you know,” he says, making a vague gesture with the hand holding his embroidery needle. “Just a little kidnapping and enslavement. Not much to worry about, really.”

There’s a sharp intake of breath from Caleb, and a muttered, “Fucking _hell_ , Molls.” from Fjord, but Yasha’s still trying to process what Molly just said.

“You... _what_?”

Molly turns to look at her, head tilted up at an angle that she knows is a challenge; she’s seen it before, when he’s feeling especially tetchy, on-edge. He’s _daring_ her, daring her to press, to make him talk, playing emotional chicken.

Well.

It’s been awhile since they’ve seen each other; he’s obviously forgotten who he’s dealing with. Pulling her shoulders back and straightening her spine, she holds eye contact and stares back.

“ _Explain_.”

Lifting his chin, Molly’s expression hardens, and he glowers back at her.

“What’s there to explain? I was stolen off the street in a small town cause I was so fucking pretty, locked up for two months, and sold. I was luckier than most- these guys got to the buyer’s place first and killed him; they got me back. Not much to say about it, really.”

The first stirrings of anger begin to simmer in her belly, and instead of pressing at Molly, she decides to go for softer targets, letting her gaze move from him to the rest of the group, each in turn. She can only imagine what her face looks like, but it must be something because when she catches Caleb’s eye he blanches. She moves from person to person, daring any of them to answer her demand for explanation.

Eventually, Fjord summons the courage to stand, hands up in a placating manner.

“A few months back there was a group of slavers called the Iron Shepherds. They had an order for somethin’ ‘eye catching’, and they caught up Molly in their nets.” Her eyes narrow, and Fjord visibly swallows. “We couldn’t find the compound where he was bein’ held, but we were able to find the buyer, and killed him and took his place. After we had Molly back safe, we went and killed every last one of ‘em. They all paid for what they did, I assure you.”

The simmer of anger has risen to a slow boil of rage, flooding out from her gut to her veins, her arteries, branching out like lightening to fill her. She wants to fight, to _rend_. She clenches her hands into fists and barely manages to keep herself in check.

“And _none_ of you thought to tell me.” She scans the group again, from one face to the next, and sees guilt, mainly, mixed with sadness, regret, nervousness. “You’re supposed to keep each other safe. You’re supposed to keep _him_ safe.” Her voice is rising, the anger harder to control, to hold in now that she’s let it go. “When I leave, I trust you to protect him, and not only didn’t you do that, but you didn’t _say_ anything. You could have sent a message, you could have called and I’d have come, and you _didn’t_.”

She doesn’t quite realize she’s gone from sitting to standing until suddenly Molly’s there in front of her, fingertips resting lightly on her chest, claws gently pressing into the leather of her shirt. The others have drawn back, but as always Molly exhibits no fear in the face of her anger, no concern that she might hurt him, and she curses him for a fool in her mind.

“Come on, storm cloud, we’re taking a walk. I think we’ve got some things to discuss, and I’d rather not do it here.”

She can’t move immediately, needing a moment to control her fury so she can relax, unclench her fists. The whole time Molly waits patiently, his hands a firm and grounding presence. Her shoulders drop slightly and he smiles, taking a step back but placing a light hand on her arm to lead her away from the group and out into the woods around them.

They walk a short while- far enough for the illusion of privacy while not so far they can’t see the flicker of the campfire in the distance through the trees. They come to a stop and Molly brings his hand down to grasp her hand, giving it a squeeze before pulling her down to sit with their backs against a large tree.

It’s quiet for a few minutes, the silence not unusual for them. After a moment Molly ends up leaning in, resting his head carefully on her shoulder. This isn’t unusual either; they’d grown very close in the circus, sharing space and quiet easily with one another.

What _is_ unusual is pretty much everything else.

He’s not draping himself over her like an oversized cat. His tail stays curled protectively to his other side near his hip, and his hands remain in his lap instead of winding around her arm to cuddle closer. His silence is more pensive than comfortable, but she’s patient. If he needs time to find his words, it wouldn’t be the first time.

As she well knows, some things are more easily said in the dark, side-by-side rather than face-to-face in the light of day.

“So, uh-” Molly clears his throat, tries again. “I was taken. While you were away.”

Yasha hums in encouragement, and waits.

“Gods, this shouldn’t be so difficult.” Molly rubs a hand over his face with a sigh. “It- they had me for two months. The asshole who they stole me for, he’d wanted some sort of companion, a pet, something pretty. And well,” Molly laughs, a quiet deprecating thing as he gestures to himself. “They found me.”

She looks over and down and Molly’s hands are in his lap again, twisting together, gripping so tightly his knuckles have gone pale.

“It- it was rough. They broke me, Yash’.” Molly takes a shuddering breath, and she can’t stand it anymore. She shifts, pulling her arm out from between them to put around his shoulders, and he goes willingly.

“You know, I haven’t actually said that out loud before.” Reaching up to swipe a hand across his eyes, it’s like all the bravado and prickliness of a few minutes prior has drained from him, leaving him sad and tired. “I think I’ve been avoiding it because it makes it more real. But I lived it, and that was pretty fucking real already.”

“You don’t have to tell me what happened if you don’t want to,” she says quietly. Her heart aches at the knowledge of Molly- her beloved, colorful, ridiculous Molly- being ground down, brought low, _broken_. She still feels the simmer of rage at the fact that it was happening and she didn’t know. “It’s enough that you came back. It’s enough to know you’re here.”

He leans more heavily into her side. “I haven’t really talked to the others about it. I tried, a little, but it’s been hard, yeah? Caduceus suggested it might help, to talk about it, but other than little pieces of things to Caleb and Jes, I haven’t been able to.” Molly leans back slightly and tilts his head up to meet her eyes, his expression uncharacteristically pinched with concern. “I might be able to with you, but you’re my best friend, Yasha. I don’t know if I should burden you with this.”

“I wasn’t there, Molly.” As much as she knows how much she had to go, it still pains her. It feels far to close to pieces of her past she’d just as soon forget. “You needed me, and I wasn’t there. If talking about it helps you, it’s the least I can do.”

It takes him a few tries to get started, tells her about the cart ride to the compound, about how they took his coat and destroyed it while he watched. She hears about the woman who effectively silenced him, about the man who trained him, about all the horrible things they’d done. Mostly Molly’s voice stays even, almost flat, as if he’s carefully reciting something memorized rather than telling a story. By the time he gets to the end where he’d arrived at the manor where Caleb was waiting, disguised, he’s migrated to her lap and she’s holding him tight, his head resting on her chest, tucked under her chin. His voice is rough and quiet as he finishes, and for a few minutes there’s quiet. Molly trembles gently against her, and it reminds her of early days with the circus, the two of them at night huddled together near the campfire under the stars.

“I am sorry I wasn’t here for you,” she whispers. She can’t look at him as she says it, staring off into the treeline, her arms tightening around him. The warm weight of him is a comfort, tells her he’s still here, despite everything he’s just told her. That in of itself is some sort of miracle, though she doesn’t know which deity she’d thank for it. Certainly it was on Molly’s behalf in either case.

She can’t imagine a deity working a miracle on _her_ behalf.

It takes a little while longer for him to settle, and after a few minutes she asks, “Did it help? The talking?”

There’s a moment’s pause before Molly gives a slight nod. “You know, I think it did. It’s still- well I think it will always be a part of me. I can’t go into crowds as easily, I don’t like going places alone. Don’t like anyone else going places alone either. I can’t stand the idea of what I went through happening to anyone else. I still think sometimes, ‘what if they’d seen Jester’, or one of the others first, and it makes me feel sick.” He takes a deep breath, lets it out, and she can feel how he relaxes back against her in a way he hasn’t yet so far. “But yeah, I think the talking helped. It helped to be able to say it out loud, to share it. Deuces has been telling me that sharing would make it easier to carry, and damn the smug bastard, I think he may have been right.”

Snorting quietly, Yasha gives him another squeeze before urging him gently off her lap.

“We should head back, if you’re ready. The others will worry.”

Molly stands, not as graceful as she remembers, and now that she knows to look for it she can see the evidence of his maltreatment- the unnatural leanness that speaks to deprivation, the scars in places she doesn’t recall, and the ones now missing from where she remembers. His tail, held far closer and more stiffly than she can ever remember, and the combined effect has her of two minds. On the one hand, she can see how he’s been hurt, can see the weariness and wariness that never used to be there. On the other hand, she also sees incredible strength, both of person and of character. So many others might have been crushed under the weight of those experiences and been unable to come out the other side as anything other than a shell of their former selves. Molly, though, has come through and though he’d broken, he’s obviously been rebuilding himself. He’s still him, is still her Molly, even if he’s changed, and that’s far more than she could have dared to hope for given the circumstances.

She takes a look at her anger, at her fury, and decides that the people it should rightly have been pointed at are long dead. That doesn’t mean that when they return to camp she doesn’t give the rest of the group a stern looking at. Most of them quail, at least a little, though the new guy, Caduceus, just smiles serenely at her. At her side, Molly huffs as if she’s being ridiculous, and pulls her over to the log he’d been sat at before. He settles down next to Caleb, and grabs her wrist, pulling her down to his other side.

“There now,” he says. “Sandwiched between my two favorite people, how could the evening get any better.”

The night wears on, dinner passes uneventfully, and Yasha is getting ready to sit first watch with Beauregard when Caleb approaches her. He’s still pale, though his shoulders are squared.

“I am sorry. You trust us to watch after him in your absence, and we failed the both of you spectacularly. We did our best, but it was not enough, and I hope you will still somehow trust us in the future.”

She spends a moment just looking at him, searching Caleb’s face for- well, she’s not sure what, exactly; but somehow she still knows when she finds it. Molly is just as important to Caleb as he is to her, and she can only imagine what it must have been like for the man for Molly to suddenly up and disappear, to be gone for months, wondering if he was alive, or dead, or worse. It’s written all over Caleb’s face how stricken he is, and she can easily imagine how much it must have affected him at the time. There’s a lot she could say, but she’s not a woman of many words, and so she just nods in understanding.

“Molly has told me some of what happened, and I think you did the best you could.” Caleb’s shoulders drop minutely in relief, and the both of them look over to where Molly is setting up his bedroll, right next to Caleb’s so that they overlap. “He is all the family I have. Please take care of him.”

Caleb nods in understanding, and she wonders, not for the first time, where his family is, whether he misses them as she misses hers. Whether he’s lost his as permanently as she’s lost hers. She doesn’t ask, but her heart twists as she watches him settle down on the blankets next to Molly, sees how soft they are with each other, how gentle. There’s only so much to be done against the cruelties of fate, but she thinks the two of them will do well to shore each other up against them.

She leaves them to their rest and goes to settle near the fire, and with Beau by her side, starts her watch.


End file.
